Chapter 16

Logic Programming
Languages
Chapter 16 Topics

• Introduction
• A Brief Introduction to Predicate Calculus
• Predicate Calculus and Proving Theorems
• An Overview of Logic Programming
• The Origins of Prolog
• The Basic Elements of Prolog
• Deficiencies of Prolog
• Applications of Logic Programming

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Introduction

• Programs in logic languages are

expressed in a form of symbolic logic
• Use a logical inferencing process to
produce results
• Declarative rather that procedural:
– Only specification of results are stated (not
detailed procedures for producing them)

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Proposition

• A logical statement that may or may not

be true
– Consists of objects and relationships of objects
to each other

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Symbolic Logic

• Logic which can be used for the basic

needs of formal logic:
– Express propositions
– Express relationships between propositions
– Describe how new propositions can be inferred
from other propositions
• Particular form of symbolic logic used for
logic programming called predicate
calculus

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Object Representation

• Objects in propositions are represented by

simple terms: either constants or
variables
• Constant: a symbol that represents an
object
• Variable: a symbol that can represent
different objects at different times
– Different from variables in imperative
languages

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Compound Terms

• Atomic propositions consist of compound

terms
• Compound term: one element of a
mathematical relation, written like a
mathematical function
– Mathematical function is a mapping
– Can be written as a table

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Parts of a Compound Term

• Compound term composed of two parts

– Functor: function symbol that names the
relationship
– Ordered list of parameters (tuple)
• Examples:
student(jon)
like(seth, OSX)
like(nick, windows)
like(jim, linux)

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Forms of a Proposition

• Propositions can be stated in two forms:

– Fact: proposition is assumed to be true
– Query: truth of proposition is to be determined
• Compound proposition:
– Have two or more atomic propositions
– Propositions are connected by operators

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Logical Operators

Name Symbol Example Meaning

negation  a not a

conjunction  ab a and b

disjunction  ab a or b

equivalence  ab a is equivalent

to b
implication  ab a implies b
 ab b implies a

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Quantifiers

Name Example Meaning

universal X.P For all X, P is true

existential X.P There exists a value of X

such that P is true

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Clausal Form

•Too many ways to state the same thing

•Use a standard form for propositions
•Clausal form:
– B1  B2  …  Bn  A1  A2  …  Am
– means if all the As are true, then at least one
B is true
•Antecedent: right side
•Consequent: left side

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Predicate Calculus and Proving
Theorems
• A use of propositions is to discover new
theorems that can be inferred from known
axioms and theorems
• Resolution: an inference principle that
allows inferred propositions to be
computed from given propositions

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Resolution

• Unification: finding values for variables in

propositions that allows matching process
to succeed
• Instantiation: assigning temporary values
to variables to allow unification to succeed
• After instantiating a variable with a value,
if matching fails, may need to backtrack
and instantiate with a different value

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Proof by Contradiction

• Hypotheses: a set of pertinent

propositions
• Goal: negation of theorem stated as a
proposition
• Theorem is proved by finding an
inconsistency

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Theorem Proving

• Basis for logic programming

• When propositions used for resolution,
only restricted form can be used
• Horn clause - can have only two forms
– Headed: single atomic proposition on left side
– Headless: empty left side (used to state facts)
• Most propositions can be stated as Horn
clauses

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Overview of Logic Programming

• Declarative semantics
– There is a simple way to determine the
meaning of each statement
– Simpler than the semantics of imperative
languages
• Programming is nonprocedural
– Programs do not state now a result is to be
computed, but rather the form of the result

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Example: Sorting a List

• Describe the characteristics of a sorted

list, not the process of rearranging a list

sort(old_list, new_list)  permute (old_list,

new_list)  sorted (new_list)

sorted (list)  j such that 1 j < n, list(j)  list

(j+1)

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The Origins of Prolog

• University of Aix-Marseille (Calmerauer &

Roussel)
– Natural language processing
• University of Edinburgh (Kowalski)
– Automated theorem proving

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Terms

• This book uses the Edinburgh syntax of

Prolog
• Term: a constant, variable, or structure
• Constant: an atom or an integer
• Atom: symbolic value of Prolog
• Atom consists of either:
– a string of letters, digits, and underscores
beginning with a lowercase letter
– a string of printable ASCII characters delimited
by apostrophes
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Terms: Variables and Structures

• Variable: any string of letters, digits, and

underscores beginning with an uppercase
letter
• Instantiation: binding of a variable to a
value
– Lasts only as long as it takes to satisfy one
complete goal
• Structure: represents atomic proposition
functor(parameter list)

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Fact Statements

• Used for the hypotheses

• Headless Horn clauses
female(shelley).
male(bill).
father(bill, jake).

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Rule Statements

• Used for the hypotheses

• Headed Horn clause
• Right side: antecedent (if part)
– May be single term or conjunction
• Left side: consequent (then part)
– Must be single term
• Conjunction: multiple terms separated by
logical AND operations (implied)

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Example Rules

ancestor(mary,shelley):- mother(mary,shelley).

• Can use variables (universal objects) to

generalize meaning:
parent(X,Y):- mother(X,Y).
parent(X,Y):- father(X,Y).
grandparent(X,Z):- parent(X,Y), parent(Y,Z).

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Goal Statements

• For theorem proving, theorem is in form of

proposition that we want system to prove
or disprove – goal statement
• Same format as headless Horn
man(fred)
• Conjunctive propositions and propositions
with variables also legal goals
father(X, mike)

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Inferencing Process of Prolog

• Queries are called goals

• If a goal is a compound proposition, each of the
facts is a subgoal
• To prove a goal is true, must find a chain of
inference rules and/or facts. For goal Q:
P2 :- P1
P3 :- P2
…
Q :- Pn
• Process of proving a subgoal called matching,
satisfying, or resolution

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Approaches

• Matching is the process of proving a proposition

• Proving a subgoal is called satisfying the subgoal
• Bottom-up resolution, forward chaining
– Begin with facts and rules of database and attempt to
find sequence that leads to goal
– Works well with a large set of possibly correct answers
• Top-down resolution, backward chaining
– Begin with goal and attempt to find sequence that leads
to set of facts in database
– Works well with a small set of possibly correct answers
• Prolog implementations use backward chaining

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Subgoal Strategies

• When goal has more than one subgoal,

can use either
– Depth-first search: find a complete proof for
the first subgoal before working on others
– Breadth-first search: work on all subgoals in
parallel
• Prolog uses depth-first search
– Can be done with fewer computer resources

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Backtracking

• With a goal with multiple subgoals, if fail

to show truth of one of subgoals,
reconsider previous subgoal to find an
alternative solution: backtracking
• Begin search where previous search left
off
• Can take lots of time and space because
may find all possible proofs to every
subgoal

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Simple Arithmetic

• Prolog supports integer variables and

integer arithmetic
• is operator: takes an arithmetic
expression as right operand and variable
as left operand
A is B / 17 + C
• Not the same as an assignment
statement!
– The following is illegal:
Sum is Sum + Number.
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Example
speed(ford,100).
speed(chevy,105).
speed(dodge,95).
speed(volvo,80).
time(ford,20).
time(chevy,21).
time(dodge,24).
time(volvo,24).
distance(X,Y) :- speed(X,Speed),
time(X,Time),
Y is Speed * Time.

A query: distance(chevy, Chevy_Distance).

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Trace

• Built-in structure that displays

instantiations at each step
• Tracing model of execution - four events:
– Call (beginning of attempt to satisfy goal)
– Exit (when a goal has been satisfied)
– Redo (when backtrack occurs)
– Fail (when goal fails)

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Example
likes(jake,chocolate).
likes(jake, apricots).
likes(darcie, licorice).
likes(darcie, apricots).

trace.
likes(jake, X), likes(darcie, X).
(1) 1 Call: likes(jake, _0)?
(1) 1 Exit: likes(jake, chocolate)
(2) 1 Call: likes(darcie, chocolate)?
(2) 1 Fail: likes(darcie, chocolate)
(1) 1 Redo: likes(jake, _0)?
(1) 1 Exit: likes(jake, apricots)
(3) 1 Call: likes(darcie, apricots)?
(3) 1 Exit: likes(darcie, apricots)
X = apricots

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List Structures

• Other basic data structure (besides atomic

propositions we have already seen): list
• List is a sequence of any number of elements
• Elements can be atoms, atomic propositions, or
other terms (including other lists)

[apple, prune, grape, kumquat]

[] (empty list)
[X | Y] (head X and tail Y)

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Append Example

append([], List, List).

append([Head | List_1], List_2, [Head | List_3]) :-
append (List_1, List_2, List_3).

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More Examples

reverse([], []).
reverse([Head | Tail], List) :-
reverse (Tail, Result),
append (Result, [Head], List).

member(Element, [Element | _]).

member(Element, [_ | List]) :-
member(Element, List).

The underscore character means an anonymous variable—

it means we do not care what instantiation it might get
from unification
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Deficiencies of Prolog
• Resolution order control
– In a pure logic programming environment, the
order of attempted matches is nondeterministic
and all matches would be attempted concurrently
• The closed-world assumption
– The only knowledge is what is in the database
• The negation problem
– Anything not stated in the database is assumed to
be false
• Intrinsic limitations
– It is easy to state a sort process in logic, but
difficult to actually do—it doesn’t know how to sort

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Applications of Logic Programming

• Relational database management systems

• Expert systems
• Natural language processing

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Summary

• Symbolic logic provides basis for logic

programming
• Logic programs should be nonprocedural
• Prolog statements are facts, rules, or goals
• Resolution is the primary activity of a Prolog
interpreter
• Although there are a number of drawbacks
with the current state of logic programming
it has been used in a number of areas

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